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KANSAS—A CRISIS IN OUR NATIONAL HISTORY

There are no greater heroes in the history of our country than Eli Thayer of Massachusetts, and Charles Robinson of Kansas.—William H. Taft

In its relation to Government, our country has completed two periods of its existence. The Colonial period ended at Yorktown. The period of State Sovereignty had its ending at Appomattox. Kansas was the herald of Appomattox; the climax in the series of political incidents which led to secession and the war between the States.

By the Ordinance of 1787, the last Continental Congress excluded slavery from all that part of the public domain lying north of the Ohio River. In 1803 our territorial limits were expanded by the purchase of Louisiana, and a serious clash between the Free and the Slave sections of the country came upon the division, in relation to slavery, of this newly acquired domain. It was precipitated upon Congress by the application of Missouri, in 1818, to be admitted into the Union. Its constitution provided for slavery. The northern part of the new state extended from the Mississippi to the Missouri; the north boundary being 40° 30' north latitude; and this line, taken in connection with the Platte River from the Missouri to the Rocky Mountains, suggested what the South intended should be the dividing line between the sections in the new territory. After two years of acrimonious debate a compromise measure was adopted admitting Missouri, as prayed for, but excluding slavery forever from all the remaining territory, acquired from France, lying north of 36° 30' north latitude.

The debate upon the measure developed the existence, in the North, of a growing hostile sentiment toward slavery, which confirmed in the minds of Southern statesmen the necessity of keeping the number of Slave States equal, at least, with the number of Free States; for only by thus maintaining a balance of power in the Senate, could legislation adverse to slavery be prevented. Also, the limitations of the compromise agreement emphasized a further necessity; the acquisition of additional territory south of 36° 30' from which Slave States could be created in the future, to balance the admission into the Union of prospective Free States. This resulted in a propaganda for territorial expansion southward. In pursuance of such policy, the revolt against Mexico, by Texas, was probably encouraged.[60] In discussing the recognition of the Republic of Texas, in January, 1836, Mr. Calhoun said, "It prepared the way for the speedy admission of Texas into the Union, which would be a necessity to the proper balance of power in the Union between the slave-holding and non-slave-holding Commonwealths, upon which the preservation of the Union and the perpetuation of its institutions rested.[61]

The State of Vermont "apprehended that the political strength which the annexation of Texas would give to the slave-holding interests, would soon lead to a dissolution of the Union, or to the political degradation of the Free States"; and, in pursuance of that apprehension the "Legislature of Vermont adopted a set of resolutions protesting against the annexation of Texas or the admission of any Slave State into the Union," which was presented in Congress.[62] Having respect for Northern sentiment, Congress kept Florida waiting six years: until Iowa was ready to come into the Union.[63] The South consented readily to the settlement of the "Oregon Boundary Question" at 49° north latitude instead of 54° 40'. In fact, at the time the Democratic National Convention of 1844 declared our title to the whole of Oregon as far as 54° 40' to be "clear and unquestionable," Mr. Calhoun, secretary of state, had proposed to Her Majesty's representative to settle the controversy by adopting the 49th parallel as the boundary.[64] Texas was admitted into the Union; the articles of annexation providing that it might be subdivided into five states, at any time it chose to make such division. Also, after a war of conquest with Mexico, Upper California and New Mexico were added to the public domain.

The mutual congratulations indulged in by the Southern managers over the accomplishment of the pro-slavery program for territorial expansion, were interrupted by intelligence of the most startling character. Before the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo had been signed, gold was discovered in the Sierras, and the occupation of California by emigrants, principally from the Northern States, was an immediate result. Thus, the conquest of Mexico—the prize trophy in the triumphal procession of pro-slavery events—carried with it, by the irony of fate, the Nemesis of her despoiled people. Within two years a Free State had been carved out of the Territory which the South had won for slavery.

The contests which were had over the admission of Missouri into the Union, and the annexation of Texas, were trivial in comparison with the storm that burst upon the Thirty-first Congress over the admission of California. The already strained relations between the North and the South reached the limits of tension; and but for the tabling of the "Wilmot Proviso," and the adoption of the "Compromise" measures, the cords that bound the Union would have snapped then and there. "The first weeks of the session were more than enough to show in its full breadth and depth, even to the duller eyes, the abyss that yawned between the North and the South."[65] "All the Union men, North and South, Whigs and Democrats, for the period of six months were assembled in caucuses every day, with Clay in the chair, Cass upon his right hand, Webster upon his left hand, and the Whigs and Democrats on either side."[66] It was during this debate that Mr. Seward announced the doctrine of the "higher law":

The Constitution regulates our stewardship; the Constitution devotes the domain (the territories not formed into states) to union, to justice, to defence, to welfare, and to liberty. But there is a higher law than the Constitution, which regulates our authority over the domain and devotes it to the same noble purposes.

Webster thus began his great speech:

I wish to speak today, not as a Massachusetts man, nor as a Northern man, but as an American. … The imprisoned winds are let loose. The East, the North, and the stormy South combine to throw the whole sea into commotion, to toss its billows to the skies, and disclose its profoundest depths. … I speak today for the preservation of the Union. Hear me for my Cause.[67]

Said Toombs of Georgia:

I do not then hesitate to avow before this House and the Country, and in the presence of the living God, that if by your legislation you seek to drive us from the territories of California and New Mexico, purchased by the common blood and treasure of the whole people, and to abolish slavery in this district, thereby attempting to fix a National degradation upon half of the states of this confederacy I am for disunion, and if my physical courage be equal to the maintenance of my convictions of duty, I will devote all I am, and all I have on earth to its consummation.[68]

This speech was repeatedly interrupted by storms of applause. And Stephens, too, was greeted with loud acclamations when he announced his concurrence in every word of his colleague, and declared the Union dissolved from the moment an attack upon a section became an accomplished fact.

Colcock of South Carolina then announced that he would bring in a formal motion for the dissolution of the Union, as soon as the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia should have been resolved upon, or the Wilmot Proviso passed.[69] The compromise agreement was effected by the fine patriotism, the sagacity, and the personal sacrifice of two great figures of that generation: Clay and Webster. In promoting this measure, they exhausted their political resources, and forfeited their political fortunes. Neither of them could have been reëlected to the senate.

Nothing was settled by the compromise of 1850; both sides accepting it in a tentative way. "The present Crisis may pass," wrote Mr. Stephens in 1850,[70] "the present adjustment may be made, but the great question of permanence of slavery in the Southern states will be far from being settled thereby. And, in my opinion, the crisis of that question is not far ahead."

This review, altogether too brief, is made herein to show the extreme tension of the sectional feeling which existed in the country on account of the extension of slavery; and the national significance of the struggle that was soon to develop over the question in Kansas. It also foreshadows the action the Southern States would surely take, if the Kansas decision declared against them.

By the admission of California into the Union as a Free State, the South lost the "balance of power"; but the general situation at the time was far from being hopeless. Further territorial expansion was necessary—imperatively so—but the prospect was still full of promising possibilities. There was Cuba, that Buchanan had offered a hundred millions for in 1848; out of which two, or, if necessary, three States could be made. And, looming up in the more remote horizon, were Nicaragua and the remainder of Mexico. And, last but not least, "Squatter Sovereignty," or, in more modern parlance: "Let the People Rule."

The "Pearl of the Antilles" was the prize trophy in the new crusade for territorial acquisition, and "Free Cuba" the slogan. The efforts to get control of the island, for purposes of annexation, were persistent, and the history of them is intensely interesting. First came filibustering operations. Three expeditions were sent out in 1849–1851. The command of the last of these was offered—first to Jefferson Davis, and then to Robert E. Lee.[71] It sailed August 3, 1851, under Lopez. In the first scrimmage with the Spaniards, Colonel Crittenden (son of Senator Crittenden of Kentucky) and fifty of his men were captured, taken to Havana, and shot, August 24th. The remainder of the Army of Invasion was defeated; Lopez was taken and garroted; and his followers who had been taken prisoners, were sent to Spain.

General Quitman's expedition, organized in 1853–1854, would have been more formidable than any theretofore undertaken. He had commanded a brigade in General Scott's army, in Mexico, and had been Governor of Mississippi. His demonstrations, however, may have been merely in support of Mr. Marcy's efforts, at the time, to open negotiations with Spain for purchasing the island. Meanwhile the Black Warrior incident offered the most promising opportunity of all. The provocation in that case could have been held to be sufficient to justify a declaration of war; and that surely would have been the result, had it not been for the tornado of anti-slavery sentiment which was let loose at the time by the promulgation, in the Kansas-Nebraska bill, then pending in Congress, of the new doctrine of "Squatter Sovereignty"; and by Mr. Dixon's amendment thereto, expressly repealing the restriction of the time honored Missouri Compromise. "It may be affirmed with confidence," says Mr. Rhodes,[72] "that Northern public opinion, excited by the Kansas-Nebraska act, alone prevented this unjust war." The New York Courier and Inquirer said June 1st:

Does any sane man live who believes that if Cuba was tendered to us tomorrow, with the full sanction of England and France, that this people would consent to receive and annex her? … There was a time when the North would have consented to annex Cuba, but the Nebraska wrong has forever rendered annexation impossible.

A revolution in Spain gave an opportunity for negotiations to purchase the island; but the suggestion that a few millions of money should be placed at the disposal of the Executive, during the recess of Congress, to be used in the Spanish-Cuban business, met no response;[73] while the "Ostend Manifesto" received no consideration whatever. The trouble was that the South had been moving with too much energy and too arrogantly. Her statesmen had undertaken to do everything at once. Had they been less aggressive, or more conciliatory and diplomatic, and concentrated their efforts on the acquisition of Cuba, they surely could have succeeded;[74] and would then have been in position to await the psychological moment to move the Kansas question. The Missouri Compromise was a "solemn covenant entered into by two opposing parties for the preservation of amicable relations." It was not sustained by any constitutional authority. Kansas Territory, therefore, might have been peacefully occupied by emigrants from Missouri and the Southern States, as Missouri had been, leaving, with confidence, the constitutionality of the restrictions against slavery, for future settlement by the courts.

The creation of the State of Kansas was a political proposition pure and simple. The amendment to the Nebraska bill creating Kansas Territory provided for a "complete Territorial government; including a legislature with two houses and thirty-nine members; although, at the time, there was not one white man in the Territory, except those intermarried with Indians and the few who were there under authority of Federal law. … The project fell upon Congress as suddenly and apparently as uncaused as a meteor from the political sky."[75]

The settlement of the Territory was promoted by the leaders of the pro-slavery and anti-slavery sections of the country. The South was spurred to activity by the extremity of its political and commercial necessities; while the North was impelled by a great moral sentiment, that had developed with time and changes which had occurred in public thought and in economic conditions. But the fact should not be lost sight of, that the ethical emotions which nourished this sentiment had their origin, or beginnings, in the unprofitable and unsatisfactory character of slave labor in that section. The Southern statesmen staked the entire stock of their political assets on the result in Kansas. The North already had a majority of one State, with the Territories, Minnesota and Oregon, waiting at the threshold of the Union for admission into the family of States. If the South lost Kansas, its political power and prestige would be destroyed; slavery would thereafter be dependent, in the Union, upon the mercy or charity of the aggressively hostile anti-slavery sentiment which it had too arrogantly aroused.

The plans of the Southerners for the creation of the new State, were well matured, and seemed in every way feasible. The geographical situation was ideal. The close proximity of the friendly State of Missouri, with a large percentage of its population on its western border, backed by the mutuality of every Southern State, seemed to be sufficient guaranty that the necessary voting population could, and would, be promptly furnished. They had good cause to believe that they could get their people into the Territory in sufficient numbers to control the necessary elections.

In the Senate Mr. Seward said, May 25, 1854:

The sun has set for the last time upon the guaranteed and certain liberties of all the unsettled portions of the American continent that lie within the jurisdiction of the United States. Tomorrow's sun will rise in deep eclipse over these. How long that obscuration shall last, is known only to the power that directs all human events. For myself I know this: that no human power can prevent its coming on, and that its passage off will be hastened and secured by others than those now belonging to this generation.[76]

Authorities by the score might be cited to show the gloom and despondency of the North at this time. The people had reason to believe that Kansas and Nebraska would become Slave States, and that the preponderance of Southern influence in governmental affairs would be perpetuated indefinitely.

May 30, 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Bill was signed and the doctrine of Squatter Sovereignty thereby crystallized into law. Immediately the historic contest for the occupation and political control of Kansas Territory was on: a contest that marks an epoch in the history of our country. The great events of the succeeding decade: the acts of secession, the war between the States, with its tragedies; and the Emancipation Proclamation, were all involved in the result.

It cannot be said that the contest was of local concern, carried on between factions in Kansas over the question whether the State should be a Free State or a Slave State; for at that time there were no settlers in the Territory to comprise such factions. The interest in the impending struggle was nation wide. Congress had merely cleared the ground for action; "pitched the ring," for what was to be the first political battle in the "fight to a finish" between the slave-holding and the non-slave-holding sections of our country: the beginning of the final struggle between freedom and slavery.

The question of slavery in the Territory was to be decided by the votes of the people who would emigrate to and occupy it. The South had chosen to place its reliance upon votes in a contest where oratory, tact, and statesmanship had theretofore failed. Its slogan was "Squatter Sovereignty." The answer given back by the North was "Organized Emigration:" "a power unknown before in the world's history."

The rapid settlement of California had shown that any country will draw emigration thereto, if it offers an attractive lure. Mr. Eli Thayer, of Massachusetts, had made a note of that fact and believed that what the discovery of gold had done to promote emigration to that state, the advantages of soil and climate for successful home building, would do for Kansas, if properly advertised. The formation of the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company, with an authorized capital of $5,000,000, was a result of his conclusions upon the subject. It proved to be "a stronger defiance to slavocracy than anything ever uttered in the hall of Congress." This commercial novelty put its capital in the advance instead of in the rear of the column of occupation. It assisted emigrants to reach their destination, and helped them to develop their farms. For this purpose it installed saw mills and flour mills, where needed; furnished machinery and implements; built churches, school houses, and hotels. Also, it proposed to earn dividends for its stockholders by these and other investments. As Mr. Thayer expressed it: "When a man can do a magnanimous act; when he can do a decidedly good thing, and at the same time make money by it, all his faculties are in harmony."

An incident of the period of the occupation of Kansas is thus related by Mr. Thayer on page 187 of the Crusade: "One day, in 1855, Senator Atchison, with some others, was at the wharf in Kansas City, when a river boat approached with one of our engines on deck. Atchison turned to those on the right and asked: 'What is that on the deck of the steamboat?' His companion answered: 'Senator, that is a steam engine and a steam boiler.' Turning to the others he repeated his question. They repeated the answer before given. He replied: 'You are a pack of—— fools. That is a Yankee city going to Kansas; and by——! in six months it will cast a hundred Abolition votes.'"

The affairs of the company in Kansas were placed under the direction of Dr. Charles Robinson, also of Massachusetts. He came to the Territory early in July, 1854; located the town of Lawrence, and established there the headquarters of the bureau of northern immigration.

Naturally the first immigrants to arrive came from Missouri. In sentiment they were quite unanimously pro-slavery; but that was not discouraging, for the publicity bureau, organized by Mr. Thayer and ably backed by Mr. Greeley through the columns of the New York Tribune, had proclaimed the advantages and possibilities of the new Territory far and wide; and the public interest thus awakened gave ample promise of satisfactory results in the near future. July 31st, the first consignment of emigrants from the North, twenty-nine in number, arrived at Lawrence; and September 2d the second installment of one hundred and fourteen arrived and joined the initial company. Within a few months "Organized Emigration" was in successful operation; and by the close of the year 1856, it had fulfilled the Kansas prophecy. As Mr. Thayer states it:[77]

We had triumphed in the great conflict. We had in Kansas four Free-State men to every one of our opponents; our numbers were rapidly increasing while theirs were diminishing. Buford had returned to Alabama. Atchinson and Stringfellow had given up the fight.

Concerning the Kansas conflict Dr. Burgess says:

The record of this struggle is certainly one of the most remarkable chapters in the history of the United States. There is much to admire in it, much to be ashamed of, and much to be repudiated as foul and devilish. The prudence, moderation, tact, and bravery of Dr. Robinson and his friends have rarely been excelled by the statesmen and diplomatists of the New World or of the Old. They were placed in a most trying situation both by their foes and by those who, professing to be their friends, endangered the cause more by violent and brutal deeds than did their open enemies. Their triumph over all these difficulties is a marvel of shrewd, honest, and conservative management, which may well serve as one of the best object-lessons of our history for succeeding generations.[78]

It is not within the purview of this sketch to recite in detail the various incidents, accidents, and extremities which befell the Northern emigrants in working out the problems of state building. They began to acquire experience promptly with the arrival of the first colony; and the authorities all agree, that, during the ensuing three years an area of low political barometer was general throughout the Territory, with a continuous storm center, of great energy, at Lawrence. "By the sharp logic of the revolver and bowie knife, the people of Missouri became the people of Kansas." Residents of Missouri furnished liberal pro-slavery majorities at the elections, and their personal services were available at all times, for the preservation of peace and order in the Territory; as well as to enforce, by force, a proper respect for the dignity of the Territorial officers, and for the authority of the Legislature itself.

A revolt against these superimposed attentions, organized and led by Charles Robinson, became the thorn that rankled in the pro-slavery flesh, and led to the discomfiture and defeat of the Slave-State propaganda. Robinson had the temerity to challenge the subtile logic of the revolver and bowie-knife in determining the qualifications of Territorial electors. His dissent, at first, took the mild form of a petition to Governor Reeder, after the election of November 29, 1854. asking that "the entire vote of the districts receiving the votes of citizens of Missouri, be set aside; or that the entire election be set aside." After a brutal usurpation of the polls, at the election for members of the Territorial Legislature, March 30, 1855, a Legislature which, under the organic act could determine whether the State should be Free or Slave, Robinson again protested and sought redress of the spoilation of the squatters' rights: and, failing to obtain justice, united the Free-State men in a revolt against the authority of the Territorial Legislature, and in a determination to repudiate the laws it intended lawlessly to enact. Also, what had still greater significance, he organized his followers into military companies to resist, by force of arms, any further infringement upon their rights. Answering his call to duty, the Free-State men of Lawrence and vicinity led the nation in this crisis in public affairs, making its history, and directing its destiny. It was the hour of Destiny. Sending for a second consignment of Sharp's rifles, Robinson wrote these impressive and heroic words:

We are in the midst of a revolution, as you will see by the papers. How we shall come out of the furnace, God only knows. That we have got to enter it, some of us, there is no doubt; but we are ready to be offered.

In haste very respectfully, Yours, for freedom for a world,

C. Robinson.

The organization of a military force by the Free-State men, gave to the Free-State party a solidarity and prestige it had not theretofore enjoyed. It at once became a popular party; and encouraged by daily accessions to its ranks by immigration, combined with a prospective certainty of becoming the majority party, it became bravely aggressive, and boldly launched its campaign for Free-State supremacy. In furtherance of their plan of campaign, the Free-State men adopted a constitution for a Free State, and organized and put into effect a full fledged State Government in opposition to the existing Territorial Government; and under it, with Charles Robinson as Governor, sought admission into the Union. Only a wise and courageous leadership combined with a high order of executive ability, could successfully handle the delicate problems involved in this complicated program. The leadership required the necessary tact to unite and reconcile divergent convictions and opinions, within the party, upon questions of principle as well as of policy; it also required prudence to restrain the impetuous, and to avoid complications which, at any time, might make shipwreck of the cause.

The results accomplished by the Free-State settlers during the first two years of their occupation of the Territory, amply justified the generous congratulations in which they indulged. They had, wisely, withdrawn from under the fire of an arrogant, domineering majority, and, in their segregation, were surely creating a State to their own liking, in their own way. They matched their wits against the management of their political opponents, and were more than satisfied with the dilemma in which the situation placed them. It became plainly evident that unless the Free-State organizations, civil and military, were utterly destroyed and further immigration from the North retarded, the Free-State cause would certainly succeed. The situation, therefore, demanded the adoption of more strenuous methods in dealing with it than could be approved by the National Administration.

What they had failed to accomplish by "peaceful" methods, the pro-slavery junta now sought to gain by the execution of more radical measures. They accordingly organized an "Army of Invasion," and the Wakarusa War of 1855 became an historical incident. They indicted the Free-State Governor, Robinson, and the more prominent Free-State men, for "constructive" treason; arrested them, and put them in prison. In May, 1856, under cover of judicial authority, the town of Lawrence was looted and burned. The Free-State Legislature that had been elected, assembled at Topeka, only to be dispersed, July 4th, by the armed forces of the United States. A blockade of the Missouri River was declared against Free-State immigrants, and made effective. They also attempted, without success, to cut off communications between Kansas and the Northern States, which the Free-State men had opened up, via Iowa and Nebraska. They murdered Dow, and Barber, and Brown, and Stewart, and Jones, and Hoyt.

A third, and the final invasion, closed this chapter of heroic undertakings and lamentable failures. September 14, 1856, their army, 2800 strong, occupied Franklin. During the night, Lieutenant Colonel Joseph E. Johnston, U. S. Army, with a battalion of cavalry and a section of artillery, arrived at Lawrence. Placing his battery in position on Mount Oread, the muzzles of his guns pointing toward Franklin, and deploying his cavalry in the valley in front of the town, he awaited the crisis developing in the pro-slavery situation. On the morning of the 15th, the newly appointed Territorial Governor, John W. Geary, accompanied by Lieutenant Colonel Philip St. George Cooke, U. S. Army, arrived upon the scene from Lecompton. After a short conversation with Governor Robinson, they rode out to interview the invaders. It was the hour of fate. A brief conference with General Atchison was held in front of Atchison's lines; and then, it was all over; the Federal Government had intervened. The campaign of violence had failed, and with it expired the last substantial hope of the pro-slavery managers that the balance of power between the warring sections of the country could be restored. Upon receiving Governor Geary's ultimatum: that he must retire with his forces from the Territory, immediately, Atchison turned the head of his column toward Missouri. Arriving at Westport, he disbanded his army and gave up the struggle. Buford returned to Alabama and Jackson to Georgia. That Kansas would be a Free State was practically assured from that hour.

Involved in the corollary of the Free-State victory were the startling incidents in history that followed in quick succession, culminating in the stupendous tragedies of war. Mr. F. B. Sanborn said:[79]

Had Kansas in the death struggle of 1856 fallen a prey to the slave holders, slave-holding would today be the law of our imperial democracy. The sanctions of the Union and the Constitution would now be on the side of human slavery, as they were from 1840 to 1860.

The question of slavery domination must and will be fought out on the plains of Kansas.[80]

Kansas must be a Slave State or the Union will be dissolved. … If Kansas is not made a Slave State, it requires no sage to foretell that there will never be another Slave State.[81]

Slavery in South Carolina is dependent upon its establishment in Kansas.[82]

The Touch-stone of our political existence is Kansas.[83]

Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama stand pledged to secede from the Union, should Kansas applying for admission as a slave state be refused admission.[84]

The question is one of life or death to the South upon the simple alternative of the admission or rejection of Kansas with her slave constitution.[85]

That American is little to be envied who can speak lightly of the decisive contest in Kansas between the two antagonistic civilizations of this continent. Either he does not love his country, or he is incapable of understanding her history.[86]